


Lest We Remember

by stuartdakins



Series: We're Not In The Subjunctive Anymore [3]
Category: History Boys (2006), History Boys - All Media Types, History Boys - Bennett
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Irwin Needs Therapy, M/M, subjunctive 'verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24603862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stuartdakins/pseuds/stuartdakins
Summary: Irwin blinks and it's clear he's come back from miles away - where exactly he's not sure, but it's a dark, desolate recess of his mind where Dakin can't follow. He's seen that look before, but only ever in sidelong glances, when Irwin doesn't think he's watching (which of course, he always is).
Relationships: Stuart Dakin/Tom Irwin
Series: We're Not In The Subjunctive Anymore [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1770538
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21





	Lest We Remember

**Author's Note:**

> In which I continue to inflict my sad headcanons on this poor, unsuspecting fandom (I'll see myself out, shall I). I unwittingly (maybe a bit wittingly) set up this third part though, and writing it broke me a little bit but I had to follow through. I would beg forgiveness if I had regrets.

After months spent grappling with adulthood, sexuality, and where the two fit into his identity as a whole, it's a refreshing change of pace for Dakin to spend an afternoon rediscovering how to be a son. Most of the morning is lost to sleep, but he's tempted downstairs by the smell of cooking and he finds his mum making him beans on toast - like he's a six-year-old with the flu instead of a mardy nineteen-year-old with a hangover. She lets him eat it in front of the telly, too, just like when he was six - though he never used to wash it down with coffee and painkillers, and he can't imagine she'd have let him watch _The Young Ones_ as a kid. 

In return, he lets her talk his ear off about her work cronies and the endless sagas of their lives, and he listens with faint amusement - it's like the plot of one of her trashy soap operas he pretends to hate. She probes him for any new gossip about the Cutlers boys, but there's not much to report - he's been neglecting them too, he realises. There's no mention of the night before or the morning after or anything discussed therein - that is, until she has to get ready for work (and he finds himself disappointed she has to leave so soon, just as they're finding their feet again). She asks him, with a knowing little smile, if he has any _plans_ this evening - and he tells her if that's her way of asking if he's seeing Tom tonight, then yes. 

"You know," she says, "your whole face lights up when you talk about him."

"Does it _fuck!"_ Stu protests, though he can feel the heat rising in his cheeks.

"You really don't think you're going to keep in touch? After the summer, I mean."

He shrugs. "Not much point, really, is there?"

"You know what I think? I think you're scared he's going to forget you when you go - or vice versa. I don't fancy the odds of that happening, though."

"Oh, go to _work,"_ he says witheringly - a weak comeback, but the best he can muster.

She gives him another hug before she leaves, and it occurs to him that they must have hugged more today than they have in the last year.

"Have fun. Be safe. I love you," she mumbles into his shoulder.

He sighs. "Always do, always am, love you too." 

And with that, she's off - and Stuart gives Tom a call to let him know he's running late and he'll explain everything in a bit, before rushing upstairs to faff with his hair.

*

Dakin kisses Irwin as soon as the door's closed behind them, in lieu of a greeting but also an apology.

"And what time do you call this?" Irwin murmurs into the kiss.

"I said I'd explain, didn't I? You got anything to drink?"

Irwin disappears into the kitchen, muttering about how Dakin's costing him a small fortune in booze and cigarettes - and he's pretty sure the old woman who works at the off-licence thinks he's an alcoholic.

"Doubt she recognises you," he reassures him. "She's blind as a bat - been serving me since I was fifteen." 

Irwin doesn't seem convinced, but pours them each a glass of wine. Like most boys his age, Dakin had always been a cheap beer or a rum-and-Coke man, believing wine was reserved exclusively for women and gays, but in recent months he's acquired a taste for it - amongst other things.

"Anyway, the reason I was late. I was with my mum and I lost track of time, but more importantly - and I don't want you to panic, mind - "

"Cheers. I'm definitely panicking now."

"I sort of told her. About us, I mean."

"You did _what?"_

"Well, barely about us. Mostly about me. She knew I'd been lying about seeing Don, and she wanted to know why. So, I - told her that I like men, and that I'm - sort of seeing one now. Don't worry though, I told her you were just a boy from school."

"I suppose I am, aren't I?" Irwin muses. "Fucking hell, though - you came out to your mum? That's huge."

Dakin shrugs. 

"How did she take it?"

"Fine. Asked a _lot_ of embarrassing questions, but she was... basically fine with it." 

"Good. I'm glad." 

"It's not like she's in a position to judge. She got up to far worse when she was my age - unwed teenage mother and all that."

There's a pause, a hint of sadness in Irwin's smile, and Dakin notices he's fiddling with his watch. 

"What about yours?"

"Hm?" Irwin blinks and it's clear he's come back from miles away - where exactly he's not sure, but it's a dark, desolate recess of his mind where Dakin can't follow. He's seen that look before, but only ever in sidelong glances, when Irwin doesn't think he's watching (which of course, he always is).

"Your parents. When you came out to them. I'm assuming they didn't take it well?"

"You're assuming they know at all."

"Fuck. They don't?" _How could they not,_ he thinks to himself. _They must be blinder than the old lady who works down the offie_ \- and it's on the tip of his tongue, but he thinks better of saying it out loud.

Irwin slinks off to the living room, gesturing for Dakin to follow him with a tilt of his head that would have been imperceptible to the untrained eye - that is to say anyone but Dakin, who's studied his every little quirk and habit and knows him completely and utterly by heart. He takes a seat on the awful sofa next to Irwin, who's furiously knocking back his drink, and places a hand on his knee.

"If you don't want to talk about it," Dakin suggests, "we don't have to. We can just - do what we do best, if you catch my drift."

Irwin shakes his head. "I doubt I'd be in the right headspace for it. And - I do want to tell you. Quid pro quo, like you said."

"Fuck quid pro quo. Don't listen to me! I talk absolute bollocks half the time."

"I know you don't believe that."

"Fine. Maybe thirty percent. I just - don't want you telling me anything because you feel like you _have_ to."

"Thanks." Irwin takes his hand, interlacing their fingers together. "It's fine, really. Where to start, though? I mean, I wanted to tell my parents so many times but - I couldn't. They were… cold, and withholding, and the more distant they were the more fucking desperate I was to please them. And... then there was Jack - my brother - and he was popular and good-looking and athletic and - everything I wasn't. _You'd_ have fancied him rotten. I don't think I'd have stood a chance if you'd met him first."

Dakin gives his hand a reassuring squeeze. "Who's to say? He might be all that, but - he's not you." (And it might be cheesy, but it's worth the little smile it elicits from Irwin.)

"You're sweet, you know that? Sometimes. When you want to be."

"Yeah, well don't go spreading it around. I've a reputation to uphold." 

"Your secret's safe with me. But - anyway, Jack was always the golden child, naturally, and he could do no wrong in our parents' eyes, and I should have hated his guts but I couldn't. He was perfect and didn't even have the decency to be a prick about it, and he was my only friend in the world, and I fucking loved him. You know, he was the reason I wanted to go to Oxford so badly."

"Of _course_ he went to Oxford."

"He _was_ Oxford, through and through. Top of his class, star of the rowing team, you name it. And - and I was just a kid, and all I wanted was to be like him - God knows my parents wanted me to. Then I turned seventeen, and I realised I was gay, and I was - fucking _terrified._ Partly of what my parents would think, but mostly what Jack would think. He was the first person I came out to."

"Let me guess. He was a dick about it and that's why you never told your parents."

"The opposite, actually. He was lovely, and so supportive - and he said he'd be there for me when I was ready to tell Mum and Dad."

"So what happened?"

Irwin takes a deep, shuddering breath that's deafening amid the silence, and Dakin knows what he's about to say a split second before he says it, but the two words still hit him like a punch in the gut.

"He died."

And now Dakin thinks about it, there were cues he should have picked up on a lot earlier, in the way Irwin talked about him - only ever in the past tense, and in that reverential way people talk about the dead - but he can't have been paying as much attention as he'd thought he was. 

"It was this freak accident - skiing - he fell, and - and broke his neck - and he was only twenty-one…" 

His voice is thick from holding back tears now, and Dakin has no idea what he'll do if Irwin actually _does_ cry - he barely knows what to say as it is. He manages an _I'm sorry,_ but it feels so vastly insufficient and stupid that he stops himself from saying anything else - but thankfully Irwin scrubs his eyes and swallows and when he speaks again, the heartbreaking fragility is gone from his voice.

"No, _I'm_ sorry for coming over all maudlin. I'm sure this wasn't the evening you had planned."

"Don't be stupid. You needed to talk about it, so - talk to me. I can't promise I'll know what to say, mind. But - I can listen?"

And it's a stab in the dark - this is all so new for both of them, for Irwin to talk about his feelings, for Dakin to listen (let alone _care,_ which he can no longer deny he does) - but it seems to be the right thing to say.

"Thanks. I appreciate it, really." He lays a hand on Dakin's shoulder and holds on like it's the only thing keeping him steady. "After he died, I just - I couldn't tell them, not on my own. I kept putting it off and putting it off and - in the end, I never did. And I fucked up my exams, so Oxford was out of the question. I think that put them out more than anything else - they had this idea that I'd… I don't know, carry on his legacy or something, but I couldn't even do that." 

"I'm sorry, but that's fucking stupid. And - actually, I'm not sorry - what the fuck is wrong with them? They had no right to put that on you - you were a kid, and your brother had just died, and - would it have killed them to just… not be fucking awful to you?" He's vaguely aware he's raising his voice, and he knows it's not helpful, but he's so viscerally fucking angry on Irwin's behalf that he doesn't care. 

"Stuart, it's fine. It was a long time ago now - and they were never _awful,_ not really, they just… didn't get me. I still see them every now and then - birthdays and such, and they'll buy me some obscenely expensive gift because... I don't think they know what else to do - "

"Hence the watch?"

"Exactly. But I'm fine with the way things are, because at least it means they're trying, I suppose. And if I came out to them, then all of that would change, and I - I can't lose them too."

"Tell them, don't tell them - it's your business. But they're lucky you talk to them at all, by the sounds of it. You didn't deserve that, any of it. You know that, right?"

Irwin shrugs and gets up as if he's trying to shake himself out of a dream. "I need a cigarette. Want one?"

_"Tom."_

He turns around then, and it's like Stuart's seeing him for the first time, everything laid bare - all that false arrogance and bitter cynicism, all of it suddenly making perfect, tragic sense. 

"No. You're right," Irwin concedes, voice barely audible. "I - I didn't."

Dakin pulls him into a tight, fierce embrace - and that's when Irwin starts to cry. It's silent and subdued and Dakin mightn't have known he was crying at all had his body not been shaking and his breathing ragged. He melts into his arms, letting Dakin take his weight - what little there is of it - and eventually his breathing evens out and he steadies himself. When their eyes meet again, he's red-eyed and a bit sheepish - and Dakin kisses him before he can apologise again, because God knows he would, given the chance.

"It's alright," he says softly, wiping a tear from Irwin's cheek with his thumb. "I'll take you up on that cigarette now, though, hm?" 

Irwin kisses him back, and Dakin thinks he sees hints of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "That," he says in between kisses, "sounds like a _very_ good idea."

*

They drink and smoke in silence, perched on the windowsill in Irwin's bedroom, the gentle breeze providing a welcome relief from the summer evening heat. The clouds are turning a shade of salmon, and the silence is pleasant. Dakin's reminded of his earlier conversation with his mother, and the beginnings of a question form on his lips - one that's been simmering away for a couple of weeks now, but he's been putting off asking.

"I know we haven't really talked," he says tentatively, "about what's going to happen when I leave…"

Irwin takes a long drag on his cigarette before answering. "You don't have to say it. I know - "

"I want to keep doing this. I know you'll be here and I'll be there, but - I don't see why we can't make it work."

Irwin looks horrified, affronted even - and Dakin wonders for a brief moment if he's read the situation wrong. "Oh, God. You feel sorry for me, don't you? Because of - what I told you."

Dakin lets out an exasperated sigh. "You are - impossible. You know that, right? Tom, I _like_ you. And - I _really_ like having sex with you, but - more than that - I like _you._ You hate yourself but you still think you're better than everyone else and you're so fiercely intelligent but not smart enough to know it and I have never, for the _life_ of me, been able to figure you out. But I get it now. And yes, what happened to you was fucking dreadful, but this isn't about that. And it _certainly_ isn't about me feeling sorry for you. I felt sorry for Pos, but I never did anything about it, did I? Because it was _worlds_ away from how I feel about you."

"You'll be so busy, once term starts - "

"I'll make time, for fuck's sake. We can call, and write, and there are these fantastic inventions called trains, and they even have some of them here, in little provincial Sheffield. I'll probably be too flat fucking broke to visit much, but I'll be home for holidays and such. And you can come and see me in term time, when I'm drowning in essays - work some of your magic, even - "

"You've got this all figured out, haven't you?"

"I… may have been thinking about it for a little while now. And - look, I can't promise I won't want to see other people - "

"I wouldn't ask you not to," Irwin says immediately, and clearly this isn't the first time he's thought about it either.

"But - I can promise I won't care about anyone else half as much. Never have before, doubt I will again. Because - in case you haven't noticed - I'm sort of yours."

"Say that again? Without the 'sort of'."

Dakin leans in and kisses him softly, sweetly, tasting wine and cigarettes and Irwin. 

"I'm yours."

He'll say it again later that night - whispered against Irwin's lips, written with his tongue between Irwin's thighs, screamed into the pillow as Irwin fucks him from behind - and that night, no questions asked, he'll stay.


End file.
